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Chapel condo planners call for two towers, ask vote delay

Developers of the controversial West Palm Beach waterfront condominium planned for the Chapel-by-the-Lake site have submitted new plans that call instead for a two-tower configuration they hope will assuage complaints about the project’s scope.

And late Monday, the developers asked that the second hearing and final vote, set for Tuesday, Oct. 15, be delayed to the Monday, Oct. 28, meeting, to give the city and the public time to digest the new design.

The city commission last month gave initial approval to the proposed 25-story tower, following a six-hour meeting at which supporters foresaw an economic boon and opponents envisioned a “monstrosity” that would ruin the neighborhood.

But commissioners made it clear that developers might not do as well when the panel took a second and final vote Sept. 30. Days later, planner Kieran Kilday asked for a delay while he reconsidered the condo’s design.

On Monday, Kilday submitted the new plans calling for two buildings, one 25-stories and 327 feet high with 49 units and one 24 stories and 314-1/2 feet high with 47 units.

“The comment we kept getting was the sheer mass,” Kilday said Monday afternoon by telephone. He said the new design, which will be more expensive, leaves the same number of units but makes two round towers instead of a more rectangular single structure.

“It opens up the sky,” Kilday said.

Architects' plans

The new configuration still has the building between 28 and 32 feet in from properties to the north and south. The city’s “setback” rule requires buildings be back one foot from the property line for every two feet of building height, meaning these buildings would need more than 160 feet.

First Baptist Church, which owns the 3.2-acre amphitheater site at 1112 S. Flagler Drive, has a deal to sell it to developer Al Adelson for $23 million for what was originally proposed to be a 29-story, 384-foot condo complex.

After the city’s planning board voted down the project July 16, the developer dropped the building’s size to 25 floors, shortening it by 57 feet.

Should commissioners turn down the revised project, by city statute, developers could ask again for the same setback waiver and other approvals but not for a year, unless “new circumstances or material changes affect the application.”

Developers had said that if the tower was rejected, someone probably would build something there, as they already have the proper land-use designations now to build an 86,000-square-foot medical building, a parking garage and an 18-unit residence.

Church officials have said they see the sale as a windfall that will support the church’s religious mission. About 500 of its more than 2,000 members attended a 2010 meeting and voted 247-216 to allow the sale of the property.

The current church land generates no taxes. An economic analyst for the developer has said the tower would generate $2.7 million in property revenue for the city each year and about the same amount for Palm Beach County and the county school district. He said construction would create more than 1,000 jobs.